TRA urges reduction in access fees…
THE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) yesterday ordered Batelco to reduce its prices and expand its services to allow other operators to access its network.
The TRA is required by law to examine and approve Batelco’s first Reference Access Offer (RAO) - the firm’s basic fee to other operators to access its network.
A specialised team was assigned to review and analyse the firm’s offer, given the importance of the RAO to the market, the TRA said in a statement.
Batelco was also asked to provide additional information to justify the basis of the tariffs it proposed to charge.
Having reviewed the RAO, the TRA said it was not satisfied that Batelco set fair and reasonable tariffs, terms and conditions in accordance with the provisions of the Telecommunications Law and the Access Regulation.
It said in spite of requests to Batelco to provide proper justifications for certain costs the TRA did not receive them.
This prompted the TRA to start the formal procedure of asking Batelco to respond to the specific concerns that had not been resolved.
Competition
Officials at the TRA told the GDN they were unable to reveal what Batelco charges other operators for access to its network as the order contains commercially confidential information.
The charges would soon be made public, said a spokeswoman.
Batelco officials said they could not comment until they had personally seen the document order.
“We will have to study the paper and see what kind of impact it will have on our operation and we will issue a statement in the next few days,” a spokesman said.
Meanwhile, TRA general director Andreas Avgousti said that it had issued the order to carry out Bahrain’s policy of promoting competition so that consumers can benefit from liberalisation and introduction of competition.
“We had to make adjustments to the RAO issued by Batelco so that it would be fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory,” he said.
“I am well aware that Batelco, like other dominant operators in other countries, is not happy when it has to offer such services at prices that it does not consider appropriate.
“I am equally aware that new entrants will not be happy either because they would like to see further decreases in the prices, obligations of quality of service as well as other services.”
He added that the RAO was due for review in the next six months, which gives Batelco and other operators an opportunity to bring up any concerns they have when applying it to the TRA, so these could be taken into account.
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